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Obama agents pepper-sprayed migrants: History challenges caravan response outrage | 26 Nov 2018 | Democrats are expressing outrage that U.S. border agents on Sunday shot rounds of tear gas at caravan migrants who threw rocks at law enforcement while trying to breach the U.S.-Mexico border. But critics hammering the Trump administration are glossing over a similar episode that occurred under then-President Barack Obama. In 2013, during the Obama administration, Border Patrol agents reportedly used pepper spray to fend off a group of approximately 100 migrants who attempted to rush the same San Ysidro port of entry. A San Diego Union-Tribune article at the time said agents fired "pepper balls" and used other "intermediate use-of-force devices" to repel the crowd. The migrants in that confrontation also reportedly threw rocks and bottles at U.S. authorities.